Thin-Film Process Engineer (Vacuum)

About the role

As a Thin-Film Process Engineer, you'll own the vacuum deposition tools at the heart of our module fabrication. You'll operate, maintain, and troubleshoot sputtering and thermal evaporation systems, ensuring tool uptime and reliable, repeatable deposition. You'll develop, optimize, and document deposition processes for electrode and contact layers (metallic and dielectric thin films). You'll also own device packaging and encapsulation process development—barrier, lamination, and edge-seal approaches that protect modules in real-world conditions.

Responsibilities

• Operate, maintain, and troubleshoot sputtering and thermal evaporation systems, ensuring tool uptime and reliable, repeatable deposition.
• Develop, optimize, and document deposition processes for electrode and contact layers (metallic and dielectric thin films).
• Own device packaging and encapsulation process development—barrier, lamination, and edge-seal approaches that protect modules in real-world conditions.
• Maintain vacuum systems and supporting hardware: pumps, chambers, gauges, targets, sources, and fixturing.
• Characterize deposited films and packaged devices, analyze results, and drive process improvements.
• Partner with the engineering team to transfer electrode and packaging processes toward manufacturing scale.
• Keep the lab safe, organized, and running—maintaining process logs, equipment records, and safety practices.

Requirements

• B.S., M.S., or PhD in Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience operating and maintaining vacuum deposition equipment (sputtering and/or thermal evaporation).
• Practical knowledge of vacuum systems—pumps, chambers, base pressure, leak checking, and routine maintenance.
• Experience developing and optimizing thin-film deposition processes, with strong hands-on troubleshooting instincts.
• Comfortable planning and running experiments, characterizing films, and using data to drive process decisions.
• A maker's mindset: practical, resourceful, and energized by getting hardware to work reliably.
• Eager to contribute and learn in a collaborative, dynamic, fast-paced startup environment.
• Six-Sigma certification and a strong, almost perfectionist attitude toward maintaining controls and reducing process variation.
• Experience with device packaging, encapsulation, or barrier/moisture-protection processes.
• Experience depositing electrode and contact stacks for solar cells, OLEDs, displays, or similar thin-film devices.
• Familiarity with perovskite and/or organic photovoltaic (OPV) materials.
• Experience with R2R or other web-based / large-area coating processes.
• Cleanroom and glovebox experience.
• Film characterization experience (profilometry, SEM, XRD, four-point probe, ellipsometry, UV-Vis, etc.).
• Coding/scripting for tool control or data analysis (Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB).
• Hardware/fixture prototyping (mechanical design, 3D printing, basic machining).

Skills

Not specified

Benefits

Not specified

Pay

Base salary offers are given based on the experience level of the candidate but applicants should expect base salary levels in-line with their experience level for the Boston area. We are willing to hire multiple exceptional candidates with this posting.

Schedule

Full-time position located on site in Woburn, MA at our Headquarters and Manufacturing Development site.